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A genie is the English word for a jinni, an Arabian spirit, but the anglicized form comes from the French "génie" from the Latin "genius", a spirit that guarded Roman people and places. The jinni as génie appeared in 18th-century translations of the "Thousand and One Nights." The earliest usage, however, is Persian, referring to Jaini, a wicked female spirit in Zoroastrian mythology. In Arabic, "jinn" is a collective noun deriving from a root whose primary meaning is "to hide," and cognates include the Arabic words for "possessed," "insane," and "embryo." Some authors interpret the word to mean, literally, "beings that are concealed from the senses." An Aramaic inscription from Beth Fasi'el near Palmyra pays tribute to the "ginnaye," the "good and rewarding gods. However, as an Aramaic term, it was used by early Christians to designate pagan gods reduced to the status of demons and was not introduced into Arabic folklore until late in the pre-Islamic era. The Qur'an says that the jinn were created from a smokeless and "scorching fire" but are physical in nature, being able to interact in a tactile manner with people and objects; along with human, and angels (malāʾikah), they are the three sapient creations of Allah. Like humans, the jinn can be good, evil, or neutrally benevolent and hence have free will and on the Day of Judgment will be sent to Paradise or Hell according to their deeds. Muhammad and other prophets were sent to both "humanity and the jinn."

In Sūrat Al-Jinn, Allah narrates that the jinn touched or "sought the limits" of the sky and found it full of stern guards and shooting stars, as a warning to man, and that they used to take stations in the skies to listen to divine decrees passed down through the ranks of the angels, but since the revelation of the Qurʾan they would be blocked by fiery sentinels. The Qur'an also forbids their association with Allah and advises men not to worship jinn. Muhammad's cousin ′Abd Allah ibn al-′Abbas (and a nephew of Muhammad's wife) claimed they were created thousands of years before humans and ruled the Earth, governed by 72 kings; over time, they caused corruption, fought each other, shed blood, and opposed the prophets Allah sent to them, so Allah sent malāʾikah to fight them (or destroyed most of them by fire) and created humans as their successors. (In Jewish lore, the shedim were mostly invisible but mortal beings who ruled the world until human beings replaced them; their king Asmodeus appears both in Islamic lore and in the Talmud as a rebel against Solomon.) Later, Solomon (Sulaiman ibn Dawud) placed them in bondage and ordered them to perform various tasks such as building the first Temple; Sulaiman died leaning on his staff, so he remained upright, and the jinn continued to work until Allah sent a worm to gnaw at his staff until his body finally collapsed, thus freeing them. They exist in three classes: those who have wings and fly in the air, those who resemble snakes and dogs, and those who travel about ceaselessly. Other traditions described them as resembling vultures, snakes, dragons, onagers, other animals, or as tall men in white garb. They may assume human form to mislead and destroy their victims and are also quite willing to have amorous affairs with humans. They subsist on bones, which will grow flesh again as soon as they touch them, and their animals live on dung, which reverts to grain or grass for the use of their flocks. Muhammad also claimed that everyone has a personal jinni (qarīn) as a counterpart in the spiritual realm who could influence him to do good or evil.They also have an affinity with the imaginal realm, where the unseen take on visible forms and where emotions become predominant, and thus can affect human behavior through dreams and psychological functions. The 14th-century theologian Taqi ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah (whose writings became the source of Wahhabism) said the jinn were "ignorant, untruthful, oppressive, and treacherous" and were responsible for most pseudo magic by cooperating with magicians to lift items in the air unseen, delivering hidden truths to fortune tellers, and mimicking the voices of deceased humans during seances.